The Labrador
Pact was written on a series of Wide Ruled A4 Refill Pads purchased from
WH Smith, using a Papermate Flexigrip Ultra pen.
Most
of the writing was done in my bed, but some of it was done in my living
room. One chapter (‘chop’) was written on a GNER train travelling
to my girlfriends’ parents house near Durham.
My girlfriend
helped type it up onto her Packard Bell laptop, using Microsoft Windows
ME software. OK, she typed the whole thing up. She is a fast-typer. I
am not, even though I used to make a living with my own Internet PR firm
and writing about the Internet and computers.
I listened
to a variety of albums during the writing process. Including:
Stevie
Wonder, Hotter than July
Missy
Elliot, Miss E . . . So Addictive
Sade,
Diamond Life
Coldplay,
Parachutes
Ian Brown,
Music of the Spheres
Marvin Gaye, What's
going on
Basement
Jaxx, Rooty
Felix
Da Housecat, Excursions
U2, The
Best of 1990 – 2000
Dusty
Springfield, Dusty
The Smiths,
Best II
Red Hot
Chilli Peppers, By the Way
Al Green,
Al
I didn’t
write while watching TV, except for two paragraphs completed during an
episode of Six Feet Under. Hopefully you aren’t able to tell which
two paragraphs they are.
I tried
not to read too much during the months I was writing. I think they call
it ‘anxiety of influence’. But anyway, I made exceptions for:
Jonathan
Franzen, The Corrections
Stephen
King, On Writing
Ovid,
Metamorphoses
JG Ballard,
Super-Cannes
William
Boyd, Any Human Heart
Henry
James, The Portrait of a Lady
Jon Ronson,
Them
Anthony
Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential
Men’s
Health magazine (but only the workout sections)
The TV
pages (various newspapers)
Cereal
boxes
Back
of toilet roll (an Andrex competition)
Road
signs
Bank
statements
The food
ate during this period was vegetarian, and principally from Safeway supermarket.
A near-disastrous moment occurred nearly half-way through the novel when
I spilt a glass of Ribena over a pad full of work. A hairdryer and some
very quick-thinking on my girlfriend’s behalf saved the day.
Most
days I would walk to the park with my girlfriend and test ideas out on
her. She would tell me if they were crap or if they were good. If she
said they were crap I would argue with her but then have to agree.
On Saturdays
we went to a really tacky bar near where we live and would often row because
I wanted to stay out later than her. In fact, we still do that.
Writing
started in January 2002, although at that point the idea of the Labrador
narrator hadn’t arrived in my head. The novel was going to be narrated
by each member of the family telling their story to a silent family therapist.
Writing finished in August 2002 and I congratulated all the characters
and took them out for a celebratory drink (I didn’t really. I’m
just trying to be all clever and postmodern).
It was
then sent to the
Bell Lomax literary agency, which had recently set up, and seemed to be
relevant. They said they liked it and wanted to represent me. Five months
later, in May 2003, I got a call from my agent to say Jonathan Cape wanted
to publish TLP. I was in bed at the time. It felt for a few seconds like
I had won Pop Idol, although Ant and Dec weren’t there to interview
me, and no-one in the country knew or cared about this news.
I then
went to meet my new publishers, and nearly had a panic-attack in the lift
up to the seventh floor of Random House. My publisher was fantastic and
very reassuring though, and told me the book would appear in May 2004.
I am now in the process of working with various humans and Labradors to
check that I got all the details right.
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